This is undoubtedly a strong case for the predictive and allegorical character of the Book of Joel; but a little consideration will show us that the facts on which it is grounded are capable of a different explanation than that which it assumes, and that Pusey has overlooked a number of other facts which force us to a literal interpretation of the locusts as a plague already past, even though we feel they are described in the language of poetical hyperbole. For, in the first place, Pusey’s theory implies that the prophecy is addressed to a future generation, who shall be alive when the predicted invasions of heathen come upon the land. Whereas Joel obviously addresses his own contemporaries. The prophet and his hearers are one. _Before our eyes_, he says, _the food has been cut off_.[1144] As obviously, he speaks of the plague of locusts as of something that has just happened. His hearers can compare its effects with past disasters, which it has far exceeded;[1145] and it is their duty to hand down the story of it to future generations.[1146] Again, his description is that of a physical, not of a political, plague. Fields and gardens, vines and figs, are devastated by being stripped and gnawed. Drought accompanies the locusts, the seed shrivels beneath the clods, the trees languish, the cattle pant for want of water.[1147] These are not the trail which an invading army leave behind them. In support of his theory that human hosts are meant, Pusey points to the verses which bid the people pray _that the heathen rule not over them_, and which describe the invaders as attacking cities.[1148] But the former phrase may be rendered with equal propriety, _that the heathen make not satirical songs about them_;[1149] and as to the latter, not only do locusts invade towns exactly as Joel describes, but his words that the invader steals into houses like _a thief_ are far more applicable to the insidious entrance of locusts than to the bold and noisy assault of a storming party. Moreover Pusey and the other allegorical interpreters of the book overlook the fact that Joel never so much as hints at the invariable effects of a human invasion, massacre and plunder. He describes no slaying and no looting; but when he comes to the promise that Jehovah will restore the losses which have been sustained by His people, he defines them as the years which His army has _eaten_.[1150] But all this proof is clenched by the fact that Joel compares the locusts to actual soldiers.[1151] They are _like_ horsemen, the sound of them is _like_ chariots, they run _like_ horses, and _like_ men of war they leap upon the wall. Joel could never have compared a real army to itself!